Yaccub's Curse (35 page)

“Then that’s how we playin’ it then. Let’s take your car. Bring the kid with you.”

“We’d better take my car ’cause yours is tore down. How the hell did he put that many holes in your ride and you walk away with just that little nick in your ear?”

“I don’t know. Maybe God was on my side.” I smirked and rolled my eyes sarcastically.

“Whatever, dog. Let’s just get ghost before Scratch shows up.”

“But what about Iesha? We can’t just leave your pregnant woman here for Scratch to find. You don’t even want to know the type shit this devil does. All that Satanic voodoo shit he’s into. I don’t want to think about what he’d do to Iesha if he caught her here alone.”

“Man, I got a shotgun in the kitchen, My Mom is on her way home too and you know she don’t play that shit.”

“Bro, call your mom and tell her to meet Iesha at my house. Why take any chances?”

“What makes you think Scratch won’t be checking your crib?”

“I know that’s the first place he’ll check, but by the time they get there Scratch will have already come and gone. Now let’s move.”

We herded Iesha into Charlotte Turner’s avocado green ’78 Monte Carlo and threw the shotgun with a box of shells on the seat as they slipped into the back of the car. Iesha glared at me murderously as she scooted onto the backseat next to the Mossberg pistol grip pump, but remained silent. I had no words to console her or change her mind about what I was. She already knew that I loved her, but she had chosen Huey. What more could I say?
Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get your man killed like I did his brother?
Somehow it just didn’t seem like the appropriate sentiment.

I noticed a small vehicle sitting down at the end of the block with the headlights off and all my alarm bells went off at once. A massive dump of adrenaline hit my bloodstream like a shot of nitro and my hand reflexively went to my holster. Huey saw it too and he already had his Sig out and in his hand. He turned the Monte Carlo’s headlights on and illuminated the block. It was the red BMW sitting there with its windshield starred with bulletholes. I passed the baby to Iesha and motioned for them both to get down on the car floor.

“Get the fuck down!” Huey hit the accelerator so hard that my head whipped back against the seat. I shook it off and reached onto the backseat for the shotgun. Iesha handed it to me along with the shells. Her skin touched mine and sent a chill through me.
God I loved her!

“Hold on!”

We whipped a U-turn that rolled us up onto the neighbor’s yard and demolished a withered row of bushes. From the red Beemer came the stuttering report of automatic weapons fire, cracking and smashing through telephone poles, windows, windshields, ripping up the Turner’s ailing porch and thunking into parked cars like coins in a wishing well. He was sweeping the entire street with the weapon rather than just aiming at us and destroying everything in the rifle’s arc as it swung our way. He was tearing the whole block apart with it as the bullets chased us through our frantic turn back out onto the street and down to the corner. The BMW’s lights flashed on and it began to accelerate as we made the left onto Ambrose St.

“Get that fucking shotgun ready!” Huey commanded as a sinister smile broke the surface of his face. “I got an idea.”

We could hear Scratch turning the corner as we passed my house and I noticed that all the lights were out.

Where’s Mom and Grandma?

Huey hit the gas and we rocketed toward Duval Street. By this time I had the shotgun on my lap jamming shells into it while dropping most of them onto the floorboards.

“You got that shit loaded yet?”

“Yeah, it’s loaded.”

“Then get the fuck out!”

“What?”

“Get the fuck out and blast that fool when he turns the corner!”

Huey whipped the car into a three hundred and sixty degree turn leaving a donut in the street. He leaned across me and opened my door.

“Get the fuck out!”

I dove from the car and sprinted to a parked car just three car lengths up from where Huey had stopped the Monte Carlo. The BMW rounded the corner leaving half the rubber from its tires on the road. Its brakes squealed and the tires smoked when Scratch spotted the Monte Carlo sitting there in the middle of the street waiting for him. The BMW fishtailed and side-swiped three cars before coming to a halt. I rose from behind an orange Toyota and unloaded both barrels into the driver’s side window. Blood splattered the inside of the vehicle and I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders as I watched the blood pour from the driver’s side door in thick sheets that glistened like oil in the scant light. Then I saw something that enraged me so much that I grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and beat the tricked-out Beemer with the butt of the rifle. There was only one person in the car and it wasn’t Scratch. Even with his entire face and upper torso pulverized and flayed open by the buckshot, I could still recognize the face of one of Scratch’s most faithful soldiers— Yellow Dog.

Yellow Dog was perhaps the closest thing Scratch had to a true friend in the game. He looked almost like a white boy himself. He had red hair and freckles and skin the color of buttermilk, yet his features were decidedly African. Thick lips, wide nose, and hair that was thick and wooly despite its rusty hue. Both his parents were Black but very fair skinned. He had always wanted my job and I guess he had gotten it. I always knew he wouldn’t last long as a hitter. Yellow Dog was a money man, a street accountant. It took a different type of calculation to be a killer. You never rushed in, especially when it came to taking out another killer. Who the fuck does a driveby from halfway up the block and waits until his marks are in the car with the motor running before he fires? Amateur. He hesitated and so he’d gotten his ass capped. But Scratch was still out there somewhere looking for me and the baby. He could keep sending his soldiers at me one at a time until he finally popped me or he could come at me with everything he had. He had an entire ghetto full of desperate killers to pull from. We had to get that son of a bitch. It was the only way to put an end to the madness.

Yellow Dog’s decimated corpse slipped forward and struck the steering wheel with what remained of its face. The horn blared loudly and lights began going on in the surrounding houses including my own, which was just a few doors away. Doors and windows opened abruptly as the neighborhood awakened to the smell of sulfur and blood more familiar to them than the aroma of hot biscuits and morning coffee. Another brother was dead because of Scratch and I had once again acted as the instrument of his death.

“Mourn that house nigga later. We gots to get ghost before the police get here!”

Huey was right. In the grand scheme of things Yellow Dog was just spilled milk. It was more important now that we didn’t get caught standing over his body with a smoking gun in our hands. The police had gotten into the habit of not turning on their sirens when they responded to a scene so there was no way of knowing how near or far they were from us. But there was little doubt that they were on their way. Huey was already turning the Monte Carlo around and opening the door for me to get in when I saw my mother come to one of the windows wrapped in her robe and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes locked with mine as I slipped into the car beside Huey and he hit the accelerator. Our eyes remained locked as the Monte Carlo charged down the street not breaking until we disappeared around the corner. I slumped back into my seat and covered my eyes with my fists.

“Damn.”

— | — | —

Chapter 20

“Be careful, be courteous, obey the laws, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hands on you, send him to the cemetery.”

—Malcolm X

««—»»

“I need to rest somewhere and Iesha and this kid of yours ain’t gonna last too long either unless they get some sleep. We can’t go back to my place though and we damn sure can’t go to yours. It’s probably crawling with cops about now.”

I thought for a minute. Only one solution came to mind.

“I know a place where we can go, but you ain’t gonna like it.”

I directed him onto the freeway and soon we were headed downtown towards Center City. I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. Huey watched suspiciously as I made arrangements for us. I hung up and smiled at him.

“It’s cool. I got us a place to crash for a few days.”

“With who?”

“Just make your next right. You’ll see when we get there.” I was still smiling and Huey was still glaring at me skeptically.

Huey sneered and shook his head in disgust as Christina opened the door to her tiny one bedroom apartment overlooking South Street. Without modesty or pretension she flew into my arms, greedily sucking my lips and tongue as she kissed me passionately, grinding her pelvis and opulent breasts against my body, which responded despite my fatigue. The girl was amazing.

I gently pulled her off of me and turned to Huey. He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and let out a sigh then turned as if searching for an exit. Iesha was behind him urging him forward so he relented and stepped into the apartment. He had to admit, there was nowhere else for us to go. Christina was bubbling over with excitement at seeing me. It almost made me blush.

“I can’t believe you’re here! Come in, all of you. This is Huey right?”

“Yeah, and this is his lady Iesha and this…” I gestured toward the baby who was now soundly asleep, “…is one long fucking story.”

“What happened to your ear? You’ve got blood all over the side of your head.”

“It ain’t nuthin’. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.”

We sat down on Christina’s couch while she went to get a washcloth to wipe the blood from the side of my head. After I was clean she stuck a huge Band Aid over the wounded ear and dabbed the abrasion alongside my head where the bullet had traveled with peroxide. Huey’s immutable scowl had not diminished in the least.

Annoyingly, I felt every bit the shuffling, shucking, Tomming, white man’s dog Huey’s eyes accused me of being as Christina attended to me.

Fuck that hateful bastard! This bitch treats me like a goddamned king. Who gives a fuck what color she is?
I thought to myself. Then I closed my eyes and enjoyed her ministrations.

“Anything else I can do for you baby?”

“I think the kid needs to be changed. Why don’t you and Iesha go to the store and get him some diapers and formula and stuff.”

I peeled off a hundred dollar bill from a roll that included the ten thousand dollars I’d gotten from hittin’ Jah Warrior just a week ago and handed it to her. Her eyes widened as they spotted my bankroll, but she didn’t comment. I’m sure she had assumed my gangster lifestyle was just some sort of act and she was now starting to realize that it was all real. I was curious to see how she’d handle it. Shit was about to get deep now and there would be no way I could keep her out of it.

After Christina and Iesha left, Huey and I sat and discussed the best way to bring the pain to Scratch as the baby slept calmly between us, surrounded by pillows to keep him from rolling off the couch.

“It don’t make no sense for us to be kickin’ back in this white bitch’s crib while that fool is out there spreadin’ the word all over the city about your ass. Pretty soon we won’t be able to go nowhere in this town. We need to peel this fool’s cap back tonight!”

“You’re the one who said we needed to get Iesha and the baby safe first and get some rest. Scratch don’t know nothin’ about Christina. He won’t be lookin’ for us way down here. He’ll still think we’re in the hood somewhere. This is the best place for us to kick it until we can figure out how to finish this. We can’t just stroll up into the Raymond Rosen projects and blast that mutherfucker. We need a plan.”

“Yeah? And why
can’t
you just walk the fuck up in there? He ain’t shit and them fools who work for him is just as scared of your ass as they is of him. They ain’t got no loyalty to him and if they think the mantle of power is shifting hands they’ll step in line to back the successor to the throne. You know I’m sayin’? Instead of walking in there like you tryin’ to run away and get out of the business, you walk in there like you takin’ over the mutherfucker. That’ll cause enough confusion to give you a chance to take his ass out.”

“True. That might work. It might also get my ass killed.”

“You a dead man right now anyway. At least this way you might have a chance. Now,” Huey picked up his cup of ginseng tea and crossed his legs atop the smoked glass coffee table, “Fuck is up with you and this white bitch?”

“Dog, don’t even go there with me right now. That Black consciousness shit is played out anyway. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to hear that shit no more.”

“I’m just sayin’, you was workin’ for a white drug dealer killin’ other brothers and talkin’ all that bullshit about God fuckin’ up your life and shit and now,” he shook his head and chuckled to himself as if he were discussing the ridiculous antics of some pathetic moron, “And now you all hugged up with this Caucasoid trick. Do you have that much self-hatred? You hate your own skin that much?”

“I told you I ain’t tryin’ to hear this shit right now! Don’t you think I got enough shit goin’ on without your bullshit?” I started to rise from my seat when Huey reached out with one hand and shoved me back onto the couch. Huey and I have never fought again since that first meeting when we were little kids, but the memory of that long ago ass-kicking still cowed me. I stayed put.

“Sit the fuck back down and listen to what I got to say. This white bitch is lookin’ at you and seein’ every stereotype she’s ever heard about Black men. You think she really knows what you do out there? You think she knows who the fuck you are? She looks at you and sees gangsta rap videos with young playas sittin’ in million dollar homes filled with naked women, guns, and mountains of cash like little Black Capones. She sees romance novels where African warriors turned slaves risk hanging to fuck the massa’s flat-assed dick hungry wife. She sees natural athletes with ten-inch dicks who can’t get enough of white pussy, the bad boy from the other side of the tracks that her parents will hate and her friends will envy as a sign of her liberal rebelliousness. You’re her little Mandingo, her Tupac Shakur, her Mike Tyson. You feel like some big time Mack Daddy when you’re with her don’t you? She play the innocent little white girl who’s been turned out by her charismatic Black pimp? She even calls you Daddy don’t she? It’s all some kind of fantasy to her. She ain’t no less prejudice than them fools in the white sheets just because she spreads them lily white thighs for you. When she looks at you she sees the same vicious sub-human animal they do only she sees one with a big dick.”